Systems Biology in simple terms: from experiments, computer simulations, and unthought-of insights

1. Introduction

Biology is indeed one of the youngest science; mathematics can be traced back to the "Greek Science," physics the way we see it today to Newton's time and renewed by Einstien; geography to the navegation times, chemistry to Lavoisier and so on. The term biology itself was used on the 19th century, but studies goes back to 1974 with the microorganisms by Anton Van Leeuwenhoek. Maybe what several people take as granted is the usage of reasoning in biology, until the turning of the 19th-20th-century we still had formally scientists that believed on the necessity of special laws to explain bio-systems; see that the existence of atoms was still in doubt as well, but settled by Einstein and his studies on the brownian motion. The question "what is life" is a tough one, Schrödinger itself pinpointed in a publication the complexity associated to bio-systems and foretold the emergence of new science, one that could finally address questions that physics and mathematics purely failed to reach such as the laws of biological systems; it is stable, isn't it? you walk, you breathe, you are miracle of miracles. 

A nice example of the shift of thinking and the enthusiam could be found on the words of a physicist that had shift to biology: "When I first read a biology textbook, it was like reading a thriller. Every page brought a new shock. As a physicist, I was used to studying matter that obeys precise mathematical laws. But cells are matter that dances. Structures spontaneously assemble, perform elaborate biochemical functions, and vanish effortlessly when their work is done. Molecules encode and process information virtually without errors, despite the fact that they are under strong thermal noise and embedded in a dense molecular soup. The main message is that biological systems contain an inherent simplicity ." Further, in the word of another scientist: "It is often said that biology is going to be the science of the 21st  century as physics was the science of the 20th."

2. Systems Biology

Nowadays the most beautiful and remarkable expression of biology is called systems biology, in Portuguese (Brazilian): Biologia Sistêmica. In general, the term is associated to a publication of a Japanese scientist called H Kitano in 2000, however the term was used much before by F Kapra in 1972 in the book called The Turning Point, in which Capra strives to highlight the need of a novel science, a science that is based upon holistic view rather than reductionist. On the current state of the art, one of the most prominant scientists is called Leroy Hood, an American scientist. He is responsible for the term P4 medicine, a medicine based on prediction rather than action; see that in the popular sayings we know that it is better foresee than remedy. A consequence of the enthusiam around systems biology gave rise to new terms in the scientific community such as systems pharmacology, systems medicine (sometimes called systems biomedicine), and P4 medicine; see that the term systems engineering has already been around for a while, but used in a different context.

A fast search on Google provides us the following definitions. 

"Systems biology (also known as Systeomics) is the computational and mathematical modeling of complex biological systems. An emerging engineering approach applied to biomedical and biological scientific research." [1]

"Systems Biology at a Glance

- Systems Biology is an information science.

- Systems biology is a holistic rather than reductionist approach to understanding and controlling biological complexity.

- Systems biology uses a collaborative, cross-disciplinary approach.

- Systems biology integrates many multi-scale types of biological information.

- Systems biology develops new experimental approaches to capture temporal and spatial dynamics of biological networks.

- Systems biology permits the development of predictive and actionable models of biology or disease.

- Systems biology creates many opportunities to transfer knowledge to society and to build strategic partnerships to leverage the power of ISB." [2]

"Systems biology is the study of systems of biological components, which may be molecules, cells, organisms or entire species. Living systems are dynamic and complex, and their behavior may be hard to predict from the properties of individual parts. To study them, we use quantitative measurements of the behavior of groups of interacting components, systematic measurement technologies such as genomics, bioinformatics and proteomics, and mathematical and computational models to describe and predict dynamical behavior. Systems problems are emerging as central to all areas of biology and medicine." [3]

"A Biologia Sistêmica é o ramo da ciência que busca entender os organismos biológicos em todos os seus níveis, desde a caracterização de suas partes constituintes (genes, RNAs, proteínas, metabólitos), a elucidação das interconexões entre os distintos membros dessas redes de interações, até a compreensão do organismo como um todo." [4]

   

More much can be found, given the rise of the field. 

Biology came so far from the "big", study of population with methodologies such as taxonony then anatomy and so on until molecular biology with genes and proteins. Now we are doing the opposity with systems biology, from gene to macro-propreties, from the genotype to the phenotype. And this is the grand challenge of modern science, the amount of data, the necessity of creating virtual systems for simulations and so on has occupied the mind of several scientists.  

3. More about systems biology

The specific philosophical paradigm is exactly what differentiates systems biology from closely related sciences, e.g. from molecular biology and from computational biology. Some people might think that systems biology is just a computationally based version of molecular biology , or, on the contrary, that systems biology is just a bimolecular version of computational biology and consists of computation plus experiment. This view may serve the current needs, but certainly systems biology is more than that. Systems biology itself is a philosophy, an strong set of ideas that was created due to the limitation of the classical sciences, based mainly on reduced snapshots of reality. Systems biology is rather a new scientific paradigm aiming to understand how biological function, that is absent from macromolecules in isolation, emerges when they are components in the system. Systems biology deals with a strong emergence in the sense that systems properties cannot be reduced to the knowledge of the behaviour of components in isolation. For beginners this view might sound difficult to take in. A quite simple example is if you had a car that when it is working it behaves differently from when it is not turned on; for sure the workers on this area would require much more complex tools for fixing your car [5].

A novel concept largely used in systems biology is called emergent properties. The main idea is that the emergent properties are related to the intreconnection of many molecular/cellular players (holistic viewpoint), instead of merely the sum of single players' properties (reductionism viewpoint) [6]. As an example, consider one definition of systems biology and make use of the term emergent properties: "Systems biology is the analysis of the relationships among the elements in a system in response to genetic or environmental perturbations, with the goal of understanding the system or the emergent properties of the system" [7]. 

4. Final Remarks and comments

In a recent scientific meeting, Como Lake, 2014, it was clear to me the strenght of systems biology. For me what really will be respected about systems biology is its industrial side. Besides all the problematic created by the industry, it is here to stay. The best we can do is making it better, more efficient, more practical, more for the society it supposes to serve. Systems biology is applying techniques already used in the industrial community such as simulations, see for example in industrial engineering the software called Arena (R) or even the systemic-simulation-like software in Life Cycle Assessment in Enviromental sciences called Umberto (R). To have a glimpse on the closeness, see softwares such as Modelica (R) and Copasi (R) already in use by the community of systems biology. 

Cited references:

[1] Systems biology. (2014, December 13). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10:01, December 13, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Systems_biology&oldid=637883773

[2] About Systems Biology, Institute for systems biology, http://www.systemsbiology.org/about-systems-biology

[3] Welcome to the Department of Systems Biology, http://sysbio.med.harvard.edu/

[4] Biologia Sistêmica, Laboratório de Biologia Sistêmica de Microorganismos, http://labisismi.fmrp.usp.br/index.php/br/

[5] Systems Biology vs. Computational Biology, adapted from personal comunicaton by email with Alexey Kolodkin. 

[6] "Systems Biology" and "Emergent Properties", adapted from personal comunicaton by email with Pasquale Palumbo.
[7] WESTON, A. D. and L. Hood.  Systems Biology, Proteomics, and the Future of Health Care: Toward Predictive, Preventative, and Personalized Medicine. Journal of Proteome Research 2004, 3, 179-196 179.

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PS. this is the draft for book on systems biology in simple terms, aimed to a no-expertise audience interested on the new trends on science. 

Systems Biology in simple terms